We have to agree to disagree at some point. We can't even agree on what it is we disagree on. I think this is also a fine example of how the Internet fails as a communication medium in some ways. If this were a conversation IRL, I think a lot of problems would be smoothed over by facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, etc.

Of course I've had a *few* conversations IRL that were just as bad as some of these things that blow up on the Internet. A unionized teacher in a certain cafe comes to mind. Me: We won't really fix education until we bust the union. Him: Explosion, including all kinds of odd assumpitons about me such as, "you were raised in Marin County and know nothing about the inner city" when in reality I was raised 3000 miles away and have at least a passing familiarity with "the hood" of both a large city and a small town.

Anyway, let's just agree to disagree. I'm not what you think I am, and you're probably not what I think you are. If you're ever in Northern California, you're welcome to have coffee or a beer... but no 420. I've got long hair and people offer me free pot sometimes because "surely the hippie would like to toke with us", but I have no interest. That kind of stereotyping IRL gets dismissed quickly and politely. On the Internet it's a PiTA.

Anyway, I'm done. You sir (m'am?), may have the last word if you so desire.

I have no FOF; but my inner ears are such that certain types of motion can induce panic attacks. This includes boats, high-rise elevators, and as I've gotten older it unfortunately also includes being a passenger in a car on the freeway--but not stop-n-go or windy country roads.

People have a devil of a time getting it through their heads that I DON'T have FOF. It's apparently a problem with my brain not being able to process subtle signals from my vestibular system, or with that system sending faulty signals. No doctor has every really given me a good way to fix it. Popular OTC drugs are almost totaly useless.

If it were FOF, I wouldn't ask for a window seat and feel *better* during mild turbulence. Mild turbulence feels like a bumpy road, and my system seems to handle that better. Looking out the window gives me a horizon and that helps a little, but not nearly enough. The subtle motion is always there. I took my last flight in the early 90s.

You have to label ideologies in order to discuss them. It's the labeling of *people* that IMHO, is unconstructive and just leads to primitive tribal conflict.

You keep trying to label me, and you haven't hit the mark yet. If anything, I consider myself a "whatworksian". If it works, I'm for it. Now "works" is a subjective term. You know, there used to be some consensus in this country on what it meant for things to "work". Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan would tear each other apart; but they were both cut from similar cloth and if you asked either one of them they'd say they'd certainly agree they wanted to make America work.

All of this labeling... it isn't really very constructive. I don't think we should be striving towards any particular ideology. If some ideological strain starts leading us down a path that is contrary to our objectives, then it's time to abandon the ideology, not the objective.

You asked what we should do as a society, and the answer is pretty simple: go back to classical liberalism, the philosophy of the enlightenment and reason that this nation was founded on.

This is tantamout to my call to "restore integrity". I read "classical liberalism" as being very much laissez-faire, which we never totally had either (see, the Whiskey Rebellion, pretty early in the Republic).

I think we'd actually agree that a sparse regulatory regime accompanied by men of honor would do a fine job. I just don't think we have enough men of honor these days for that to work.

I don't recall that we were discussing Rent-Seeking at all. Our discussion seemed to center more around Regulatory Capture. I introduced Corruption as a new branch in the discussion. So like I said, the whole thing revolves around an ever-expanding Semantic Debate which perhaps you might see can be tiring after a while. We started on the semantics of Progressivism and it just started spiraling more and more out of control from there...

Sigh... words in my mouth, improper inferences, strawmen... most of it just not worth dealing with, as I feel it would just lead to an ever-expanding thread. So. I'll cherry-pick one:

Politicians crusade against corruption all the time, it gets them votes. Many of them may even seriously believe that they are doing something. But that doesn't change the fact that they fail.

And now I offer as an example of someone who didn't fail at fighting corruption, Fiorello H. La Guardia, who you might only know as the name of an airport. I'm sure you'll find some reason to hate him for his "statism", or say that it's not possible today, or that you can't do that kind of thing within today's major parties. I respectfully disagree.

Good-night. I'm done.

LOL, Godwin's law much? Like all too many discussions on the 'net, this may have devolved into a pointless semantic debate too. It's almost like you vehemently agree with me... except that you hate Democrats and/or the label "Progressive" so much that you just *have* to identify it with nazis... and that doesn't seem very constructive to me.

The one little point of light here (if I may borrow that phrase) is that you agree that some regulation is necessary. You claim we're beyond it. I would submit that it's not a question of quantity, but of type. The bad type of regulation is written by regulators who walk through the revolving doors corp, gov, corp. It also occurs org, gov, org where "org" can mean unions. merger of corporation and state (fascism) is bad, but so is merger of union and state (communism) (see, California public employee unions where it's particularly bad).

I think our big difference is that you are keyed into the org, gov, org revolving door which is a big Dem problem, as opposed to the corp, gov, corp revolving door which is more GOP (although I think both parties are in on that one).

I offer for your consideration the idea that reducing regulation isn't the answer--restoring INTEGRITY is the answer. That's not an easy path; but IMHO it's the right one. I understand that India has been grappling with this lately. I don't know exactly what the status is; but I follow an Indian expatriate on Twitter and every once in a while he'll mention a guy over there who is crusading against corruption.

It may seem dark here; but if you read your US history you'll see that some of the past corruption was so egregious, it makes Watergate look like a little white lie.

That's a minority now, right? Where does this all end up when we have an approximate plurality in this country of White/Hispanic/Black/Mixed or Other?

If Google were really so hot, they'd offer free coding to POOR PEOPLE, since by definition they can't afford to pay for it. I don't see much justice in some young Black dude whose father makes $100k getting in ahead of a White girl who comes from a foster care background and is currently flipping burgers and couch surfing.

OK fine, but why mislabel it? In the Progressive movement, the state acts as a counter-balance to firms. It works until firms, usually via regulatory capture and/or loophole exploitation find a way around it. In fascism, they bypass the progressive stage and go straight to regulatory capture via tight binding with the state.

If a re-invigoration of some kind of progressive movement isn't your antidote to fascism, what is? Letting the firms do anything because somebody told you they would ride in on rainbow-colored unicorns if you did that?

It just never ceases to amaze me how some people (not saying you're in this class) actually prescribe laissez-faire as the antidote to fascism. It's literally like telling us to give them a mile in order to solve that pesky inch-taking problem.

If they are prevented from pooling their resources and government forces them to pay for the protection through an unaccountable private corporation, that is progressivism.

No. The merger of corporation and state is fascism.

Great. I'll probably have nightmares tonight about it malfunctioning in my pocket.

I was all set to sell sturdy little folding multi-cup holders that folded up so you could fit them in a purse, pocket, or glove compartment. But wait, there's more. You also get the multi-cup holder that fits in your car's regular old cup-holder. That's a great deal, right? Wrong! Call in the next 10 minutes and get DOUBLE. That's right, you get two of each--the folding multi-cup holder and two folding multi-cup car holders. Operators are standing by.

After reading over other posts, I can sort of see how this ruling doesn't necessarily erode rights, although I still think it stinks.

If he had been a *good* lawyer and said nothing, then the drive would have had a legal status of "random bits, presumed innocent" and they would have no basis to force his hand.

What he did was indicate there was some kind of evidence on the drive. Big Ooopsie because either the drive has nothing pertinent to the case and he is deceiving the court, or he is telling the truth and the drive contains something pertinent to the case which may incriminate him.

So. Maybe no real rights violation at all. Just a stupid lawyer?

Still no sale. See various definitions of "witness" which are not bound to a single, narrow definition of "testimony on the stand".

"The way I see it" is exactly how law works. If enough people see it a particular way, you get new laws. If the person who sees it a particular way is a judge, his ruling is law... until another judge sees it a different way, all the way up to the Justices, who may then be over-ruled by the other branches and/or The People seeing it a different way. Of course the seeing is only part of it. The acting is all important...